living a hectic life well

Happy Thanksgiving! We’re on our way to Knott’s Berry Farm to be thankful for ROLLERCOASTERS! (I’m actually deathly afraid – this excitement is all a front.). Healthy breakfast to fuel walking around the park:

Bob’s Red Mill 10 grain cereal with brown sugar and a banana, and a vanilla cappuccino!

After two weeks of being homeless, I finally have a kitchen!!!! It’s so good to be able to cook food and know exactly what’s in it. I’ve been able to keep off the weight creep by being very, very careful, but making my own food again will make it so much easier!

Multigrain waffles with almonds, banana, and maple syrup

AND I am in Trader Joes country once again!!! One thing I love about LA is that it is LOUSY with Trader Joes and Whole Foods. Alex was overwhelmed by how cheap things were (and also how easy it was to think you were picking up something healthy just because it was TJs…smart guy). Looking forward to more deliciousness for THE REST OF MY LIFE! #loveLA

Everyone, please welcome the incomparable Alex, writing about our new thing of the day for Thursday! He kindly agreed to guest blog his kitchen experiments as he tries to eat lower on the food chain. Spoiler alert: This pizza was amazing!

Red meat and I have broken up. Every now and then we’ll get together and do stuff (like the Bacon and Onion pizza I just ate from the pizzeria across the parking lot from our apartment – which is a healthy eating killer, by the way, glad I had forgotten how good it was until a week before we leave), but most of my cooking experiments lately have been centered around me attempting to get not only the red meat out of my life, but also the meat.

Most of the time, I find myself eating unhealthy solely because it seems easier than going through the work of trying to make something healthy, discovering I don’t really like the new flavors, and then having to go find something else to eat anyway. Usually, I’ll just go find the something else to eat to begin with.

Yesterday though, I had told Patti that I was going to make dinner, and she had already offered to let me guest post about my kitchen experiments on her blog, so it seemed like the perfect time to experiment in a potential replacement recipe for one of my favorite “junk” foods: pizza. (I know, I know, we ate pizza two nights in a row so it may not have been a perfect replacement recipe, but seriously, the pizzeria is absolutely delicious. Especially when you pile bacon on their pizza.)

But here is the recipe for the vegetarian BBQ pizza I made last night:

Originally, I had intended to just buy a pizza kit at the store for my dough, but when I remembered how much I hate finding things at Shop-Rite, I just looked up a quick and easy pizza dough recipe. Use whatever dough recipe you like, if you have questions about the specific recipe that I used, feel free to ask in the comments or ask me on twitter (@asfreeman). The dough, I don’t think, really played into the final taste of the pizza, it just served primarily as a vessel.

Once you have your dough ready to go, it’s time to prep the toppings. This recipe made a medium cookie sheet sized pizza – do with that information what you will.

New thing of the day! NTOTD! That’s gonna be a catch-phrase! Or not! Fine!

Pumpkin bread! Gluten-free pumpkin bread! Would have been vegan if I thought I could find things like guar gum in my Shop-Rite! Does anyone know if you can get these kinds of things in crappy grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods?!

I’m really glad I can represent those of us who live more than 30 minutes from the nearest Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods in the blogosphere. Although I *am* moving to the very epicenter of weird health trends in mere weeks, so I can quit my b*tchin and SWIM IN A BATHTUB FULL OF NUTRITIONAL YEAST if I want to. Which I really, really don’t.

Also if you know of any simpler ways to veganize baked goods, I would totally appreciate that info as well.

Speaking of the land of crazy health trends, here is Maria Bamford not at all exaggerating about LA:

In other news:

I am probably moving to LA about a week earlier than I first thought I was so that I can make the October auditions for Second City’s Conservatory program, which I am really, really itching to do! Finally some real training in comedy, instead of me just kind of winging it for the past six years, which has worked out pretty well, but you know could be better!

I wimped out on ANOTHER open mic tonight. I am a giant whatever synonym for wimp you can come up with because you’re more creative than I am.

Alex made an awesome vegetarian barbeque pizza from scratch (crust and all) for dinner tonight, and is totally going to guest blog about it, so look for a post from him tomorrow! New things! Yay!

It’s so good to be back to What I Ate Wednesdays! It’s been a little rocky getting back into this whole blogging thing, so I didn’t take a ton of pictures and I sort of forgot I was doing this – SO – consider this a pure, unadulterated look into what I eat when I forget anyone’s looking!

Pre-Run
I loaded ‘er up with a slice of whole grain toast with honey and peanut butter and a smoothie (skim milk, chocolate protein powder, frozen cherries, frozen strawberries, and some more peanut butter – natch). With coffee with Splenda and skim milk!

Post-Run

Don’t even pretend you don’t make mini-pancakes for your dog.

My first new thing of the day! I made Multigrain Medallions recipe care of Runner’s World for the fam. (This is linked to Joanna‘s blog, because she was less lazy than I am and actually typed it out.) I didn’t have any cornmeal so I just used 1/4 c whole grain flour and 1/4 c oats (I also halved the recipe because a. I only had one egg and b. there’s only two (and a puppy) of us, jeez). They turned out kind of thin, but surprisingly hearty and SUPER delicious. Win!

Dinner

You heard me right. Fried. Spaghetti.

We had to head into the city kind of early for what we thought was an open mic sign up. (When we got there, we found out I was supposed to sign up online. If you’ve ever wondered if it’s easy to get onstage in front of a bunch of people and try to make them laugh, the answer is no…and I’m just talking logistics here!) My point being that dinner was at 5:30, which may be normal for those of you with jobs and kids but is SUPER EARLY for us theatre/gambling type folks. And I made New Thing Number 2: FRIED SPAGHETTI! Woman’s Day (which was my savior while cooking without the internet this summer) tries to be classy and call this “crispy spaghetti,” but let’s get real here: How do you get things crispy? You fry them. I’m okay with that. So this was really great and got some zucchini in us, which is rare. It came out a little oily, but I saw that as a bonus because it kind of dressed the salads I put it on (les herbes pour moi, spinach for Alex). BOOM!

We watched half of the pilot for Mob Doctor, which I think is going to end up in my stand-up. Here’s a taste: Why in hell would the mob write “KILL HIM” in three-inch high letters on a card for her? How on earth do you get to where you are as a criminal organization if that’s as subtle as you get? Think about it. Get back to me.

Oh, with Diet Coke, because I don’t drink before I do comedy. Well, sometimes I do, but I’m not intending to do that comedy…and that’s more of a sad clown act, and involves lots of de-tagging on Facebook in the morning.

After the comedy fail Alex suggested we go to the movies instead. It was my turn to pick, and since I last picked The Master and it was sort of disappointing, I played it safe and picked Paranorman, which was amazing! It was just the right level of scary for me. (I’m a huge wimp – wait til October, when I force myself to watch scary movies every day. You’ll get a hoot out of my weird self-inflicted pain.) And it made me super nostalgic for the kids Halloween movies of my childhood, like Hocus Pocus. Anyway, this is a super long-winded way of saying that I ate a bunch of my absolute favorite never giving it up snack: movie popcorn. Oh yeah, with the fake butter. Love it.

When we got home, I showed Alex a ten minute set of Maria Bamford, who just blew me away with her ability to inhabit a character. He was like, “I know her” and proceeded to show me an entire MOVIE featuring her and three other comics. (It’s TheComedians of Comedy: The Movie, which I believe is a Netflix production, and therefore probably only available on Netflix, but I could be super wrong.) It made me feel better about a lot of things, including Brian Posehn’s story about having to do stand-up right next to a giant screen playing a football game, and everyone’s just annoyed that you’re next to it babbling about your relationships and your cat…I was like “I HAVE LIVED THIS!!!” It made me feel like a battle-hardened comic even though I’ve done like two gigs.

This is all a round-about way of telling you I had a glass of red wine and three pieces of delightful Ghiradelli’s 60% cocoa chocolate.

If you’re thinking “Boy, she consumes a lot of culture” you are right. And I would urge to keep in mind that I have been without it for four months and it is also my job. Okay, I’ll stop defending myself in three…two…one…

In Which I Am a Pit of the Bottomless Variety

See? I take in some science and philosophy, too! What am I, a cretin?

So I didn’t stop there. Jeez. I also made baked sweet potato fries. Which were delicious. And then I was still hungry, so I had nonfat Greek yogurt w/Ghiradelli chocolate chips. I’m considering marrying into the Ghiradelli family to save some cash.

I have been eating A TON lately, but this is fine with me, as I have been working out a lot and also losing weight kinda rapidly and also only eat when I am hungry. I could probably eat a tad better though. I’ll get right on that, captain.

See any good movies lately?

Cha, didn’t you read my post?!

Who’s your favorite comic?

That’s not a fair question, but I will say I have an immense girl crush on Paula Poundstone and squeal like a teenager at a Bieber concert whenever she’s on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!

I finally find my fashion twin – at the Tower of London of all places.

We all get into ruts, right? Having the same go-to outfit, eating the same thing for breakfast everyday, always going on the same date. This can be comforting, but is it really necessarily healthy?

Welll…I was reading Fitness magazine the other day and came across a little study that said that study participants who did something different every day for a month lost an average of a pound a week without making any dietary changes. Intriguing, huh? The study’s authors postulate that breaking your routine may keep you from falling into habits that keep you overweight.

Now, I am not overweight. And I’m not sure I even have four pounds to lose (I mean, I could, but should I is the real question). But, there sure are some unhealthy habits in my life that could use breaking, so I’m gonna give this a try: For the next month, I’m going to try something new everyday! And, because I firmly live by the title of my blog, we’re starting immediately.

I plan to focus on trying new foods and new workouts, but anything new’ll do. Today’s new move:

This was part of an article in Runner’s World (the July issue) for improving balance and core stability for trail runs, which is mostly what I do. I used pillows, since I don’t have any fancy balance doodads. Once Alex and I make our move, we’re going to invest in some more at-home fitness tools. We’re going to try to avoid paying for gym memberships as long as we can!

I’m starting off simple, but adding balance did challenge my abs more in this familiar move, and that’s definitely a good thing.

And speaking of routine, take a gander at the same old same old trail I run on every. day:

I have a confession to make. Today, I let other people make me feel like crap. I had a rough night last night, but I didn’t realize how much it had affected me until I felt down down down and totally useless today. And, I’m embarrassed to say, I wallowed. Here’s what wallowing looks like over here:

2 miles of relatively angst-ridden trail running

4 episodes of Glee

30 minutes of piano playing/singing French art songs (seriously – how emo can I get?!)

Which was exactly what I needed to snap out of my funk. I felt like kind of a loser sitting around all day watching teen drama, especially while, though a performer, I will never be in a musical (never say never, except when you can’t sing a note). But it got me to the fifth episode, which included two very important lessons I needed to remember today.

Quinn sits Mercedes down after she faints from starving herself and tells her that her relationship to food has changed since she started eating for her baby. “What I realized is, if I’m so willing to eat right to take care of this baby, why am I not willing to do it for myself?” I have this thought all the time, especially since so many of my fellow bloggers are moms or moms-to-be. And that goes for attitude, too. I would NEVER want a daughter of mine to allow other people to tell her she wasn’t good enough, so there is NO WAY I should allow myself to do it!

Which inspired this performance by Mercedes, which I may have sung along to, and maybe continued singing while walking my dog. Maybe.

So check it out. You are beautiful. This is a fact. You are unique, talented, and have something wonderful to share with the world. And a bunch of beer-swilling frat guys making fun of you because you’re an unwelcome distraction to the Giants absolutely stomping on the Panthers can’t change that fact…or you know, whatever’s getting you down.

Go show the world what you can do, guys! I believe in you!

(Also, I know you were worried, but the Giants win did not mess with my fantasy football matchup. The Panthers mainly concentrated their defense on Victor Cruz (owned by my opponent for the week), so he only scored 4.2 fantasy points. Y’all can breathe easy. I’ma win this one.)

(Also also, I don’t know why I didn’t immediately go here when I was down. Should have been an obvious first step.)

(Also also also: I meant what I said. I believe in you. Whatever it is you do, kill it. I’ll be here waiting to hear all about it.)